Day 4

If only I could repeat the beginning of Day 4 for every day of my life...

we had in-room massages. Aaaaahhhhh....

For lunch, we trekked back down to Pike Place and snacked on mac-n-cheese from Beecher's Handmade Cheese. So good. Did you know that those big cylinders of cheese are called truckles? Who knew?



So...did any of you take a guess at the little bit of trivia I offered up two posts ago? (What celebrity dined at The Athenian Inn while making a film?) It's not like the hint was super-obvious. ha. Yep...Mr. Tom Hanks. We got a picture of Matt and Michael sitting where Tom and Rob Reiner sat. Fun times.

Of course, we also stopped by the "original" Starbucks. Have y'all tried "fresh press" coffee? Try it if you haven't. Delicious.

Matt decided to stay in the hotel room to work on his talk for Resurgence...which was, by the way, amazing. I'm so proud of him. If you get the chance, listen to the mp3 of the Q & A (in addition to Matt's sessions, of course!). Piper was in rare form. Matt was simply giddy.

A picture of the Q & A...thanks to Scott Thomas of A29. Yes, Mark and Matt are giving each other dap.

I entitled this picture "All we need is Luke now." Get it??

The rest of the crew (minus prego Natalie who needed some much needed rest) rode the monorail to the Space Needle. Revelation #1: monorails have drivers...I thought they just ran on computers. Revelation #2: monorail drivers have poor senses of humor. Case in point: Josh tried the ol' "I bet this thing corners on rails" joke...went over like a lead balloon.

photo courtesy of Wikipedia

The Space Needle was spectacular. Although, I got motion-sickness! I guess there's subtle movement being up that high. I felt dizzy and a million pounds. So weird.

I know I keep promising this but...I should be getting a cd from Michael with our pictures. Soon, my friends.

The Saga Continues

Day 3

The Biking Experience. As I mentioned before, we had incredible, atypical Seattle weather...arid with cloudless skies. The climate set the stage for an enjoyable bike ride near the University of Washington campus. There were only two accidents. It was a pretty good percentage for 8 of us, except that both accidents happened to one person (who will remain nameless). Let me just say it wasn't me.

Since there were so many of us, we were somewhat of a force on the bike trail. We decided to give our bike gang a name: Cobra Chi. Our hand sign was holding two fingers curved like fangs while we made a hissing sound. Truly intimidating.

At the end of our bike ride, I tried to craftily edge my bike through the other bicycles propped up in front of the shop. I misjudged the distance between my bike and the handlebars of another; the knuckle on my right ring finger paid the price. Ouch. While we waited for our bikes to be inventoried, we took some pictures of us making our Cobra Chi hand signs and other goofy shots. As we're all standing around talking, Michael/Josh/one of the guys with us pointed at me and said, "You're bleeding!"

To give you a full picture of what was going on in my head, Aunt Flo had just showed up earlier that day.

So when I heard the words "You're bleeding!", I froze. Surely my nightmare had not come true.

Thankfully, it was just my knuckle profusely bleeding from where I had scraped it on the other bike's handlebars. Whew. That was close.

That night we ate at the Flying Fish. Delectable. The Raspberry Cosmo wasn't that bad either. Heather, my sister-in-law, described it perfectly: it tasted like a melted Starburst.

That's all I can muscle in for tonight. I'm going to lounge with my hubby. I'm so glad he's finally home. G'night.

Insert Pictures Here

Welp. No pictures. Yet. At least not ones that our group has taken. The Bleeckers toted the lone camera for our crew so I'm awaiting their uploadage. I'll give a rundown, you insert the pictures. For now.

Day 1

We arrived at Sea-Tac 2 p.m.-ish PST, hooked up with Hertz and then made our merry way to downtown Seattle in a stylin' and profilin' mini-van. Matt drove, I navigated. My job was made super-simple thanks to the wonderful, thoughtful Hertz NeverLost. Nirva, as I have renamed her (short for NirvaLost), and I get along pretty well. I only yelled at her once.


NirvaLost

What's the first thing you do in downtown Seattle? Head down to Pike Place Market. We perused trinkets, homemade oils and the token wolf painting vendor. Smells of freshly fried donuts rolled in powdered sugar beckoned our taste buds. Our eyes overloaded on the opulent visual textures of ripe ruby apples, grapes the size of silver dollars, oranges dimpled to perfection and flowers feathered into a flawless rainbow. Who knew a fruit and vegetable stand could be so stunning?

Our view was disrupted by a scruffy man in bright orange wading trousers peddling fish to any passer-by. We had happened upon the "flinging fish" stand. This is when I started to feel picked on. There was the strange looking fish hanging upside down, resting across the ice. It looked terrifying. Sharp teeth...almost like a bat but a fish. Except that it's called a monk fish (I found the picture below online. It looks like it's actually from the same flinging fish stand).



So imagine sticking your face precariously close to that thing so that your over-zealous sister-in-law can take a ridiculous picture of you with it. And then....it moves!!! They had rigged the frickin' thing with fishing wire so they could send people near it into cardiac arrest!

Then...

They start doing the flinging the fish thing. They're yelling something...throwing the fish to each other...but then the guy behind the counter throwing the fish to the guy standing right by us misses by a long shot. The slimy thing comes straight for Heather (my sister-in-law), Faith (Bleecker) and me! We scream. Or, at least I do (Michael got a picture of that...so insert picture here).

But, alas, it was only a stupid pillow in the shape of a fish. Picked on, I tell ya.

Down the way, we found a little spot to grub. The Athenian Inn.



Can you guess the celebrity who once dined here while making a film?? Hint: Insomnia in the Northwest.

That was our Lunner, as we all lovingly called it...lunch + dinner = lunner. We actually had a few of those this weekend. My waistband grew mysteriously tighter.

Dinner unfolded at The Pink Door with paintings of French clowns and monkeys. It tasted nothing like French clowns and monkeys though. It was quite good.

Still with me? It's okay if you're not. You might want to take this in chapters. I'll understand.

Day 2

Breakfast at Le Panier. Delish! Real-deal croissants and other pastries I struggled to pronounce. We took the ferry to Bainbridge Island and were delightfully surprised by a quaint wine-tasting room on the island amidst boutiques and a pizza joint. We met the wine-maker of Eleven and enjoyed the fruit of his labor. I especially loved the Malbec.

Dinner was with friends at Palisade. Talk about a perfect view of Seattle! Palisade is northwest of downtown on the water. Sunset is breathtaking. Which, by the way, we saw every evening we were there. The craziest thing happened: it never rained nor was it overcast. Amazing.

Day 3 & 4 will have to wait. I'm tired and I'm pretty sure most of you are bored! Have a wonderful night. Until next time...

My Honey...

...is preaching in Seattle at The Resurgence Conference. You can watch him and others (Mark Driscoll and John Piper) online here. Matt will preach at 6:15 p.m. Central/4:15 p.m. Pacific. There will be a Q & A with all of the conference speakers at 11 p.m. Central/9 p.m. Pacific tonight.

So....

I am blogging under compulsion not inspiration, so prepare yourself for tangents and ramblings.

The day after tomorrow (that would be Thursday) Matt and I are flying out with some friends to the Great Northwest. There will be lots of fine dining and laughing. Matt's favorite beer makes its home in Washington state....Mac & Jack's African Amber. He can't wait.

I can't wait to sleep in, hang out with friends and eat really well. And when I say "eat really well"...I don't mean healthy...I mean savory, probably-negated-any-working-out-I-may-have-recently-done. Yay.

In other news, I've been swimming. My friend Barkley is a fantastic, could-have-gone-to-the-Olympics swimmer. She's my new swimming coach. I even bought a swim cap. I look totally hot in it...with my bulging goggle-eyes. Freestyle, I think I've got down; breaststroke, not so much. But, I have great aspirations of finishing a 50m breaststroke without gulping half of the water in the pool.

Two excruciating words: strength and training. Strength training class has kicked my tush (and man, do I feel it exactly in that area)! Last week, I could finally walk down the stairs one foot after the other without grunting or gasping in pain on Friday. The class was Monday. The instructor's favorite saying: "Do you want results six months from now or tomorrow???" In the moment, I would be happy to get results thirty-six months later.

Last tid-bit: we're looking into co-op homeschooling for Audrey. Never thought I would be up for it, but the Lord is slowly but surely changing my heart. The little girl who made her younger brother endure homemade worksheets and lectures is starting to reemerge.

That's all, folks. Pictures of our trip should follow.

Audrey's 5th Birthday Party

On Sunday evening, Audrey celebrated her 5th birthday with a few friends and family. Her birthday isn't actually until Wednesday the 6th, but we couldn't help but have fun a little early. Here are some snapshots of the night...









Happy Birthday, Boo!